OUR FOUNDING DOCUMENT: STABLE OR FLUID?

There has been a great debate roiling in America for more than a century: whether or not the Constitution is carved in stone or a “living document.”

Conservatives wish to govern in accordance with the Constitution and the “original intent” of those who crafted the document. I would agree with this, as obviously would the founders.

In 2006 Todd Gaziono of the Heritage Foundation said: “Original intent is the only legitimate means of interpretation under our written Constitution, and all other philosophies are illegitimate.” Mr. Gaziono is, of course, correct.

That same year Elliott Mincberg, the then-vice president of the George Soros ultra lefty group People for the American Way said: “It was the framers’ intent that the Constitution adapt to changing circumstances.” In other words, it’s a living or malleable Constitution. This has been the progressive movement’s mantra from Woodrow Wilson to today. read more

by: the Common Constitutionalist

I think it was the late Sen. Arlen Specter who said, I didn’t leave the Republican Party – the Republican Party left me. Well, Arlen was wrong – he abandoned his principles and left the Republican Party. And that’s saying something, considering the state of the Republican Party.

Anyway, after Ted Cruz proposed retention elections for the Supreme Court, some big-time lawyers have come out against him, effectively saying that Cruz has gone off the reservation. To this I say, Ted Cruz didn’t leave the Supreme Court – the Supreme Court left him – and all of us.

First: How can anyone be a “conservative attorney” and a “gay rights activist” at the same time? Second: how is proposing an amendment “abandoning a fundamental understanding of the Constitution?” Isn’t that what the amendment process is for? Is that not supposed to be one of only two ways to modify the Constitution?

Meanwhile, the Washington Post weighed in saying that Cruz should know better, being that, “Sen. Ted Cruz spent his years at Harvard Law school working to secure a Supreme Court clerkship and then made his name as a lawyer by arguing in front of the body nine times.”

They go on to accuse Cruz of suggesting such a thing is just a way of “seeking support from the right wing of his party.” Well that’s funny, because Ted Cruz is the right wing of the party! read more

by: the Common Constitutionalist

At this point, most of the arguments both for and against same-sex marriage have been set forth. Many of us conservatives hold to the view that government should not be involved in marriage in the first place – yet here we are.

I’ve also heard the same refrain from practically everyone on the right, me included at times. The defeatist attitude of “we can’t put the genie back in the bottle,” or “what can we do now – it’s over, now that the Supreme Court has ruled.” And the ever popular: “it’s now the law of the land.”

But evidently, that’s not how the left viewed it, for marriage between a man and woman has been the convention and the de facto “law of the land” literally forever. That didn’t stop them and shouldn’t stop us.

Although the mainstream media loves to say that polls show the American people favor same-sex marriage, I don’t buy that for a minute. I know how polls are so easily manipulated to achieve a desired result. If it was so popular, why did states refused to put it on so many ballots?

In fact 31 states voted in favor of a constitutional amendment or state referendum defining marriage between a man and a woman or, like Hawaii, at the very least, limited marriage to one each of the opposite sex, which is the same thing, I guess.

Virtually every state that put the question up for a vote of the actual voters, voted against same-sex marriage. So there is no great groundswell of support for it and never has been. read more

It’s funny that for over a century it’s actually a progressive Republican who has led us to elect an even worse Democrat. It’s almost as if it’s the fault of the Republicans that the country is in such poor shape. It’s uncanny how often this has happened.

Just look at the time line and we can plainly this phenomenon. Progressive republican George W Bush led to radical Barack Milhous Obama. Nixon and Ford led to the peanut farming disaster Yimmy Carter. Herbert Hoover led to Franklin Roosevelt and William Howard Taft led to the ruinous regime of Woodrow Wilson, who is still this country’s worst president.

Many believe that Obama has claimed that title but I’m not so sure. I think the tag team of destruction of Taft and Wilson still retain the belt. Obama does come in a close second.

Here is my reasoning.

Let’s look at this in medical or clinical terms. Say a new disease breaks out – Ebola perhaps. As many work on a treatment, many others search for not just a treatment, but a cure – a vaccine perhaps – a way to reverse the affliction.

Now I’m neither a doctor nor a scientist, but I understand that quickest way to finding a cure for a disease is to find where it originated – to find patient number one. Isn’t that what the movie, television and novel medical investigators always say? It must then be true, right?

The Senate is scheduled to hold a procedural vote next week on amending the Constitution to let Congress regulate campaign spending.

Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) proposed a resolution to amend the Constitution in the wake of two recent Supreme Court decisions that Democrats opposed.

One was Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission, which said the government cannot impose limits on corporate spending on politics-related communications. The other was McCutcheon vs. FEC, which terminated aggregate limits on what people can contribute as individuals. read more